San Antonio To Give Composting A Try

San Antonio’s City Council approved a pilot organic waste program last week that could divert 9,000 tons of waste in its first year.

Next month, 30,000 households across four council districts will receive “green carts” for compostable waste as part of the Organic Material Recovery Program.

These green carts will accept yard trimmings, food scraps, food-soiled paper and uncommon compostables like cotton balls, dryer lint and sawdust.

The new program is part of the city’s 10-year plan to divert 60 percent of its waste by 2020. City officials expect to make significant progress towards this goal by collecting an estimated 9,000 tons of organic waste in the pilot’s first year.

Although the council ultimately voted 10-1 to approve, the high cost of the program raised concern for some council members, according to an article published last week by The San Antonio Express-News.

The new bins alone cost $1.8 million, and the city will pay a local waste management company up to $195,000 as part of a one-year deal to collect and transport organics.

If the program is expanded, officials estimate that the cost of carts and transportation could reach $33 million over five years.

Many city officials are confident that revenue from compost will offset costs. But some remained unconvinced that the program is an efficient use of taxpayer dollars – especially since it will be partially funded by solid waste rate increases.

In addition to high prices, some council members said questions of convenience and sanitation made constituents wary of the program.

San Antonio residents already use two carts for trash and recyclables, and some said that another cart would only further clutter their streets and alleyways.

Additionally, some residents worried that leaving organic waste outside during the hot summer months would result in icky smells and outrageous bug problems that could pose a threat to public health.

Some council members sought to delay the vote while concerns were mulled over. But Mayor Julian Castro, who is a supporter of the program, said that funds were allocated for organic waste diversion last year and costs shouldn’t keep the council from moving forward.

The performance of the pilot program will be tracked over the first year.

Pending city council approval, organic waste diversion programs will be instated city-wide by 2014, officials said.

Supporters noted that approving the pilot program does not oblige the council to continue with additional phases if performance standards are not met.

Article by Mary Mazzoni, Earth 911

13-Year-Old Makes A Solar Breakthrough With Fibonacci Sequence

One would be excused for suspecting that Aidan Dwyer, said to be 13, is in fact a small, very young-looking, 37-year-old college-educated con-man of the highest order. Such is not the case though for what the young Long Island lad has accomplished in a feat typically associated with much older individuals. As reported on the Patch community website out of Northport, N.Y., Aidan has used the Fibonacci sequence to devise a more efficient way to collect solar energy, earning himself a provisional U.S. patent and interest from "entities" apparently eager to explore commercializing his innovation.

And you're wondering what the Fibonacci sequence is. Aidan explains it all on a page on the website of the American Museum of Natural History, which recently named him one of its Young Naturalist Award winners for 2011. The awards go to students from middle school through high school who have investigated questions they have in the areas of biology, Earth science, ecology and astronomy.

So back to the Fibonacci sequence: Starting with the numbers 0 and 1, each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two - 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.... These numbers, when put in ratios, happens to show up in the patterns of branches and leaves on trees. Aidan, having been mesmerized by tree-branch patterns during a winter hike in the Catskills, sought to investigate why. His hunch: "I knew that branches and leaves collected sunlight for photosynthesis, so my next experiments investigated if the Fibonacci pattern helped."

One thing led to another, and before you know it, this kid, three years from being eligible for a driver's license, had built a tree-like stand affixed with small solar panels in the Fibonacci pattern. He compared its ability to collect sunlight to a flat-panel collector. And Nature won.

Summing up his research and imagining the possibilities, Aidan wrote: "The tree design takes up less room than flat-panel arrays and works in spots that don't have a full southern view. It collects more sunlight in winter. Shade and bad weather like snow don't hurt it because the panels are not flat. It even looks nicer because it looks like a tree. A design like this may work better in urban areas where space and direct sunlight can be hard to find."

Article courtesy of Tree Hugger

PepsiCo Beverages Canada Announces the 7UP EcoGreen™ Bottle

 

PepsiCo Beverages Canada announces the 7UP EcoGreen™ bottle, Canada’s – and North America’s – first soft drink bottle made from 100% recycled PET plastic.

The development of the 7UP EcoGreen bottle is a significant achievement for PepsiCo and a breakthrough for the Canadian beverage sector because the company has identified a way to couple existing technology with the best sources of rPET and best-in-class processing techniques to produce a 100% rPET, food-grade bottle that meets all regulatory requirements and is of the highest quality. Creating a bottle made from 100% recycled plastic for soft drinks is more challenging than creating a bottle for non-carbonated beverages because of the stress on materials from carbonation pressure.

By introducing the 7UP EcoGreen bottle in Canada, PepsiCo Beverages Canada will reduce the amount of virgin plastic used by approximately six million pounds over the course of one year. Studies published by the Association for Post-Consumer Plastic Recyclers in 2010, estimate this reduced use of virgin plastic will lead to a reduction of more than 30% in greenhouse gas emissions and more than 55% in energy use, based on current 7UP production levels. 

A step beyond Naked Juice 

It’s a stepwise development for PepsiCo: The technology is identical to that used for last year’s Naked Juice reNEWa bottle in a non-carbonated application, Denise Lefebvre, PepsiCo’s VP, Global Beverage Packaging, informsFood & Beverage Packaging.

“That’s no small technical feat getting to the right quality post-consumer recycle content, particularly for a carbonated soft drink bottle that has so many design requirements from pressure and product retention and utility in the marketplace,” she says. “We see a continued consumer demand for this kind of packaging.”

The 7UP EcoGreen bottle will be available across all 7UP and Diet 7UP package sizes beginning in early August, and will look and feel like any other PET plastic soft drink bottle. The bottle will be produced in multiple PepsiCo manufacturing facilities across Canada. The company invested $1 million in production enhancements in its facilities, including resin handling systems and inspection systems. Although there will be an incremental cost to produce the 7UP EcoGreen bottle, PepsiCo Beverages Canada plans to price 7UP beverages on par with other soft drink brands.

PepsiCo Beverages Canada’s long-term plan is to increase the use of bottles made from 100% recycled plastic. Currently, PepsiCo leads the industry by incorporating an average of 10% rPET in its primary soft drink bottles in Canada and the U.S.

Article by Food and Beverage Packaging 

US Navy To Jump-Start Biofuels

The RCB-X is powered by an alternative fuel blend of 50 percent algae-based and 50 percent NATO F-76 fuels.

The federal government is using the weight of the military to counter years of disappointment with biofuels and commercialize drop-in replacements for diesel and jet fuel.

Three government agencies--the Departments of the Navy, Agriculture, and Energy--today announced a memorandum of understanding to spend $510 million over three years to scale up the industry for advanced biofuels.

The agencies will put out a request for proposals to build commercial-scale biorefineries, called "pioneer plants," able to make diesel and jet fuel from non-food sources at prices competitive with fossil fuels. The biorefineries will aim to be built in different locations for a diverse feedstock supply and to encourage economic activity in rural areas.

To participate, commercial companies will have to invest at least as much as the government puts in, said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus during a media call with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Energy Secretary Steven Chu today. Funding for the program will be split equally among the three agencies and come from existing sources, they said.

"I can think of nothing more vital to national security than to diversify our forms of energy," Mabus said.

The Navy will act as a customer for production from these advanced biofuel refineries and define technical requirements for aircraft and boats. Mabus set an ambitious target of getting at least half of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2020.

Transporting fuel creates security vulnerabilities in areas of combat and the volatility of oil prices hurts the military, which consumes about 80 percent of all energy from the federal government. When the price of oil goes up one dollar, it costs the Navy an additional $30 million in fuel costs. The Navy has already successfully tested biofuels or a blend of biofuel and petroleum in aircraft, he added.

The U.S. biofuels industry is now dominated by corn ethanol, which has come under fire for the subsidies the industry receives and the environmental impact from corn ethanol.

The feedstocks for producing drop-in replacements for jet fuel and diesel can be sugar or cellulosic feedstocks, such as wood chips or grasses, said Secretary Chu. The end goal is to make jet fuel and diesel directly from cellulosic sources, he said. The Navy has also tested fuels made from algae, Mabus noted.

Even with research and development and funding for pilot plants, though, cellulosic ethanol has not met industry targets or been able to meet a cellulosic fuel mandate set in 2007. Chu said there has been continued technical progress and that large-scale plants serving the Navy will help the industry get established.

"We have been making rapid progress in the next generation of biofuels...which has put us on the cusp of a biofuels revolution. The announcement we are making will keep the momentum going," Chu said.

Article by Martin LaMonica, Green Tech Media

Coming Soon to Home Depot: Grape Solar

Grape. It’s a cluster of solar companies with a knack for retailers. Plus: solar varmint zappers. 

 

Grape Solar isn't the largest solar panel maker in the world, but it does seem to understand retailers.

The company -- which assembles panels in Oregon with components sourced from a wide variety of suppliers in China -- will soon begin selling its panels at Home Depot locations. A  formal announcement is due soon.

It's a notable accomplishment, as solar -- and a plethora of solar brands -- are not as prevalent at large retailers as you might think. It takes time and a certain degree of retailer tribal wisdom to earn shelf space at many of these places.

As reported in April, Grape already sells complete solar systems and panels through Costco and Amazon. While both retailers sell small solar panels and devices, Grape is the only brand available on the websites of both Costco and Amazon for complete residential solar systems. (You can also go to Costco and touch and buy the Grape systems, according to my neighbor.)

Home Depot's website currently offers a few kits featuring individual Sharp panels and offers solar leases through SolarCity, but the available selection is nothing on the scale that one might expect from the big-box behemoth.

If you happen to be shopping at the moment, Costco offers a better deal. The 5-kilowatt bundle there costs $16,999 while at Amazon it sells for $19,999. Costco's web site strongly recommends hiring a professional installer. Amazon is a little more cavalier.

"The Solar Power System comes complete with everything you need to rack-mount the 22 solar panels on your roof," says Amazon's site. "Should you decide to expand the array, connecting additional kits is easy."

Home Depot and Lowe's, needless to say, are two of the ultimate channel partners for green home companies. Getting shelf space at either store won't guarantee success, but it certainly creates an opportunity to get close to consumers. Home Depot sells LED bulbs from Cree, Philips branded under its own EcoSmart label, and recently started offering Wi-Fi smart thermostats from Radio Thermostat a few months ago.

Lowe's, meanwhile, has alliances with Westinghouse Solar and has invested in energy retrofitter Recurve and solar installer Sungevity.

And expect more from Costco too. Back in June, Ken Lowe, the founder of Vizio, told us that his company would soon come out with LED bulbs. A few years ago, Vizio was an unheralded, unknown TV manufacturer. After teaming up with Costco, sales zoomed. It is has since become the most popular TV brand in the U.S. for two years in a row. These two companies like each other quite a bit and Costco tends to have a loyal, strangely upscale, clientele. (I interviewed the CFO and CEO at Costco once about hot dogs and patio furniture. It's quite an interesting operation.)

Wal-Mart currently does not appear to offer residential solar systems on its website, but check out this 225-pound solar-powered barrel feeder with varmint zapper for $129.

in Japan, Softbank founder Masayoshi Son said his company would begin to build solar power plants earlier this year.

Besides residential systems, Grape also participates in commercial-scale solar projects.

The company used to be called Centron Solar, but founder Ocean Yuan changed it after getting a legal notice from Germany's Centro Solar. The Grape name comes from the fact that the company gets its components from a cluster of manufacturers near Shanghai. Yuan emphasizes that the company has a horizontal business model, leveraging suppliers, rather than a vertical one in which a single company produces its own wafer, cells and modules.

Grapes and the sun also have an affinity.

How I Fell In Love With a Fish. Great Insight Into Sustainable Farming (Video)

Chef Dan Barber talks about his visit to a 100% sustainable fish farm in Spain that could be a model for the world.

$1.5 Billion Star Trek Theme Park in Jordan to Run on Green Energy

Beam Me Up, Abdullah!

You can file this one under "slightly off-beat". Not only because it's a $1.5 billion Star Trek theme park that runs at least in part on "green energy", but because it's going to be in Jordan. I'm not sure if the local trekky population can commercially support such a thing, or if worldwide trekkies will make the trip (too bad teleportation isn't ready for prime time). Oh well, I suppose having King Abdullah of Jordan as a backer of the project and big fan of the show should be enough to make it get off the ground. 

According to HME: "The themed entertainment destination will also serve as a model for "green energy," incorporating state-of-the-art renewable technologies throughout the facility, and hosting a "future" pavilion where businesses, students and attendees can learn about alternative energy sources ranging from solar and wind energy to greywater harvesting."

 Article by Michael Graham Richard, Tree Hugger